Not so shocking: TV networks block Google TV

Major TV networks have blocked access to their online episodes from Google TV …

Google describes its new Google TV as a "platform that combines your current TV programming and the open Web into a single, seamless entertainment experience." But broadcasters don't necessarily want to see that delicious combination of peanut butter and chocolate Web and TV—and they've now taken to blocking Google TV access.

Think of this as a continuation of the "Hulu Wars." Hulu has always made it difficult to access its content on TV screens even as applications like PlayOn tried to blend the two. The reason isn't hard to find: the TV networks that created and control Hulu aren't keen on cannibalizing their TV revenues by making it too easy to dial up an on-demand, ad-limited experience. If you want to watch Hulu, you're supposed to watch it on the slightly-less-comfortable screen of your computer.

With Google entering the TV platform game, that concern still exists (Hulu now charges $9.99 a month to access its service on other devices, like a TV screen or a smartphone, although it's rumored that will drop to $4.99), but it's joined by another. Google isn't a TV company or a content company; it's essentially a giant advertising company. As Google TV takes off, sucking in every scrap of video on the Web and on TV, the company is poised to become a content aggregator that makes money from advertising on the Google TV service. The networks don't want to continue the model where the aggregator makes cash by the boatload while the content it aggregates sometimes struggles to make any money.

The networks also don't want services like Google TV to destroy the cable subscription model too quickly by making "over-the-top" Internet video too appealing, since big chunks of their cash come from cable's retransmission fees.

So the new Wall Street Journal report about Google TV being blocked comes as no surprise. ABC, CBS, and NBC have all restricted access to the TV episodes on their own websites, though Google is taking the route it usually takes: it tries to strike a monetary deal when content owners put up resistance to unpaid aggregation (this has happened with Google Books, with the Associated Press, etc). Reuters reports that Google is negotiating to free up access to this content, something that will be necessary if Google TV will be used to access more than just broadcast channels and YouTube content.

The DC advocacy group Public Knowledge argues that broadcasters have a public duty to allow access to this material. "It is truly disappointing that broadcasters would leverage their programming to deny access to viewers who watch the shows over another medium—on cable or online," said president Gigi Sohn. "When a broadcaster exercises its market power in pursuit of maintaining a business model while stifling competition by blocking Hulu, Fox.com (or Google TV), the broadcaster violates that public trust and harms consumers... If online video is to emerge as an independent medium, it must be free from the power that broadcasters bring to bear."